Jose strengthens into hurricane in Atlantic Ocean

Two days of satellite imagery from NASA's Terra and NOAA's GOES East satellites showed that Hurricane Katia was starting to crawl to the coast of southeastern Mexico. One person in Barbuda is dead after the storm, which destroyed 90% of the buildings on the island, according to ABC News.

Miguel Angel Yunes, Governor of Veracruz confirmed today the beginning of evacuation close to a million people at risk due to the hurricane's arrival.

The 1-5 scale estimates potential property damage. The storm might become a hurricane as it approaches the coast of Veracruz, Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday. In the next few hours wind gusts of up to 70 miles are expected to cross Hispaniola, and heavy floods and landslides are also expected.

The natural disaster, the strongest to strike Mexico in more than 80 years, killed at least 61 people.

On Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, Kennedy Banda said fierce winds blew out the windows of his home Wednesday afternoon.

The storm later weakened to a tropical depression as it moved into the interior of Mexico, but it could still dump heavy rains on areas that have absorbed large amounts of precipitation and been shaken by a massive natural disaster in recent days. The last time before Harvey that a major hurricane made landfall on U.S. soil was in 2005, when Wilma hit in Florida. The storm is expected to strengthen, and could become a hurricane by Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Katia churned nearly 200 miles (322 km) off the Gulf coast of Mexico on Wednesday evening before an expected turn towards land that could dump heavy rain on eastern states in the coming days, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It then was downgraded to a tropical storm and forecasters expect it to dissipate Saturday.

The hurricane center says the storm is expected to bring 10 to 15 inches of rain to the area, which has a history of deadly mudslides and flooding.

The government of Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the coast of Mexico from Cabo Rojo to Laguna Verde and a tropical storm warning for Cabo Rojo north to Rio Panuco and south of Laguna Verde to Puerto Veracruz.